5651
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Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
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Full Idea:
Kierkegaard developed the idea of 'truth as subjectivity'; the traditional conceptions of truth - correspondence or coherence - he regarded as equally empty, not because false, but because tautologous; truth ceases to be empty when related to a subject.
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From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13
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A reaction:
It strikes me that the correspondence theory of truth also involves a subject. If you become too obsessed with the subject, you lose the concept of truth. You need a concept of the non-subject too. Truth concerns the contents of thought.
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17304
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As causation links across time, grounding links the world across levels [Schaffer,J]
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Full Idea:
Grounding is something like metaphysical causation. Just as causation links the world across time, grounding links the world across levels. Grounding connects the more fundamental to the less fundamental, and thereby backs a certain form of explanation.
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From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], Intro)
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A reaction:
Obviously you need 'levels' for this, which we should take to be structural levels.
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21497
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If undetailed, 'coherence' is just a vague words that covers all possible arguments [Ewing]
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Full Idea:
Without a detailed account, coherence is reduced to the mere muttering of the word 'coherence', which can be interpreted so as to cover all arguments, but only by making its meaning so wide as to rob it of almost all significance.
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From:
A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.246), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2
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A reaction:
I'm a fan of coherence, but it is a placeholder, involving no intrinsic or detailed theory. I just think it points to the reality of how we make judgements, especially practical ones. We can categorise the inputs, and explain the required virtues.
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17308
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Explaining 'Adam ate the apple' depends on emphasis, and thus implies a contrast [Schaffer,J]
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Full Idea:
Explaining why ADAM ate the apple is a different matter from explaining why he ATE the apple, and from why he ate THE APPLE. ...In my view the best explanations incorporate ....contrastive information.
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From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.3.1)
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A reaction:
But why are the contrasts Eve, or throwing it, or a pear? It occurs to me that this is wrong! The contrast is with anything else which could have gone in subject, verb or object position. It is a matter of categories, not of contrasts.
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22090
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For me time stands still, and I with it [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
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Full Idea:
Time flows, life is a stream, people say, and so on. I do not notice it. Time stands still, and I with it.
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From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], I:26) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3
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A reaction:
This is from the spokesman for the aesthetic option in life, which is largely pleasure-seeking. No real choices ever occur.
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5650
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Reason is just abstractions, so our essence needs a subjective 'leap of faith' [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
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Full Idea:
For Kierkegaard, reason, which produces only abstractions, negates our individual essence; this essence is subjectivity, and subjectivity exists only in the 'leap of faith', whereby the individual casts in his lot with eternity.
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From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13
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A reaction:
Interesting, but this strikes me as a confusion of reason and logic. A logical life would indeed be a sort of death, and need faith as an escape, but a broad view of the rational life includes emotion, imagination and laughter. Blind faith is disaster.
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22095
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There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
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Full Idea:
Kierkegaard distinguishes three main types of subjectivity: aesthetic, ethical and religious. But are these types of people, or different phases of one person's life?
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From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4
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A reaction:
His picture of the religious mode holds no appeal for me. I also can't accept that the aesthetic and the moral are somewho distinct. People may discover they have slipped into one of these modes, but no one chooses them, do they?
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20747
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What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing [Kierkegaard]
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Full Idea:
In making a choice, it is not so much a question of choosing the right way as of the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses.
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From:
Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], p.106), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology'
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A reaction:
I'm struggling to identify with the experience he is describing. I can't imagine a more quintessentially existentialist remark than this. Reference to 'energy' in choosing strikes me as very romantic. Is 'the way not taken' crucial (in 'pathos')?
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17305
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I take what is fundamental to be the whole spatiotemporal manifold and its fields [Schaffer,J]
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Full Idea:
I myself would prefer to speak of what is fundamental in terms of the whole spatiotemporal manifold and the fields that permeate it, with parts counting as derivative of the whole.
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From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.1.1)
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A reaction:
Not quite the Parmenidean One, since it has parts, but a nice try at updating the great man. Note the reference to 'fields', suggesting that this view is grounded in the physics rather than metaphysics. How many fields has it got?
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17307
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Nowadays causation is usually understood in terms of equations and variable ranges [Schaffer,J]
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Full Idea:
The leading treatments of causation work within 'structural equation models', with events represented via variables each of which is allotted a range of permitted values, which constitute a 'contrast space'.
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From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.3.1)
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A reaction:
Like Woodward's idea that causation is a graph, this seems to be a matter of plotting or formalising correlations between activities, which is a very Humean approach to causation.
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